One of the highlights of August will be the World Puzzle and Sudoku Championships, taking place in the UK for the first time – specifically, in Croydon between the 10th and 17th. These will include the ninth World Sudoku Championships, held on Monday 11th and Tuesday 12th, and the 23rd World Puzzle Championships, held between Thursday 14th and Sunday 16th.

The registration lists have been published for both the sudoku and puzzle championships; this site hopes to be able to treat the championships as the sporting events that they are and provide a preview, paying respect to the competitors’ past achievements. Both individual and team contests should be interesting for each discipline. You can also look at the sudoku and puzzle competition Instruction Booklets and admire the invention that has gone into the design of the puzzles to be solved.

There are both individual and team rounds to be solved, with the puzzle championship in particular remarkably thematic in its partition of puzzles to rounds. One particularly interesting collection is the “Afternoon Tea” round, where the puzzles are “T Sets”, “T Rooms”, “T for Tapa”, “T for Trees” and “T for Times Tables”, the last of which look interesting and original here. Also noteworthily smart is the “Table for Four” team round, which sees a different coloured pen given to each member of the four-person teams – then each player is restricted to marketing in 20 of the cells in their colour in each 81-cell puzzle, according to the puzzle’s rules. Great teamwork and co-operation required!

Many thanks to all the puzzle suppliers for the contest – the puzzle design has been a global effort with well over a dozen suppliers for each competition – and, of course, to the organisers. It’s not too late to join in if you’re interested as the event is still looking for further volunteers. If you’re sufficiently interested in puzzles to be reading this site, it’s likely you’d enjoy helping out behind the scenes, and it’s also unlikely that you’ll get this chance again for quite a while. The volunteering opportunities page describes what positions are on offer to choose from and also what’s in it for you in return. If it sounds fun, it’s too good an opportunity to turn down!